Today was officially one of the most difficult days ever. But also one of the most gratifying.

Today I had my last classes at my handicapped school. This school goes from elementary through to high school, so some of the kids I had taught right from elementary through to high school for all 5 years.

I had vowed to myself not to cry until I started my speech at my goodbye party during the first period. But then I was told to say a few words at the morning meeting and I couldn’t hold it in any more. I just about got an “arigato” out before the floodgates opened. :P

At the actual goodbye party, I was told some of the nicest things I’ve ever been told in my life. I don’t really have that much confidence in my own teaching abilities… I know I’m decent, but a lot of the time I feel like there must be more I could do. Which is probably why I cried pretty much uncontrollably when one of the high school students gave an amazing speech in perfect English and told me that I’d changed his life (he couldn’t speak any English when I got here - now I can have a normal conversation with him, and he’s won contests, interned on the military bases and has friends in other countries - I’m so very proud of him.)

I sometimes feel like maybe I should have gone home sooner, that this isn’t a real job, etc, but when I hear words like that - that little old me actually changed someone’s life… it makes everything, every study hour, every minute spent preparing, every moment I’ve spent missing my family, all worth it.

Then when a 13-year-old boy comes up to me and says (taken from the lyrics of a song) “You are my everything, don’t leave me,” how could I possibly refuse? Someone get me a job, STAT!

How I made it through 3 classes today, I don’t actually know. But the end of the day was fantastic - the junior high ate lunch together, we enjoyed some deliciously sweet pineapple from one of the teachers’ gardens, I was force-fed cake and then the students asked me if I would watch them during their swimming class. So a student who had forgotten her costume and I sat poolside in our wheelchairs hand-in-hand giggling at the other kids and gossiping about who was the most good-looking teacher. ^_^

Whatever I do next, it’s really going to be a challenge for it to live up to this!